Robert Jordan

Author Robert Jordan died yesterday.

Jordan, creator of the mammoth Wheel of Time series, was one of my favorite fantasy writers ever, right up there with Tolkien. But I haven't read a book by him in almost a decade. I decided when Book 8 of WoT was released, in 1998, that I was sick of his stalling -- Books 6 and 7 were meandering space-fillers, doing little to nothing to advance the plot that had been so exciting, or develop the characters that I had come to love so much. I decided I would wait until he finished the series once and for all, and then read the whole thing through from beginning to end, rather than absorbing one 800-page tome every couple years or so.

Well, I guess I can get started reading. The 12th, and allegedly final volume of WoT, was left unfinished. That saddens me, and angers me at the same time. A lot of frustrated readers will probably agree with me: Jordan could've wrapped this series up three or four books ago. Now we'll never get to see the ending -- the true ending, anyway; I'm sure someone will eventually finish the book for him, for better or worse.

Note to George R.R. Martin: get off your ass and finish A Song of Ice and Fire before the same thing happens to you!

Ah, well. Rest in peace, Robert Jordan. At least now I know what my reading project will be after I finish 2007's Kurt Vonnegut Project.